How are delicious desserts related to military deserters? The Splendid Table explains the common history of the words.
Dessert and deserter by from the Splendid Table – September 4th, 2010.
Desserts and deserters
Tag: language
Well, what about the Muslims?
First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist.Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew.Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant.Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.-Martin Niemöller
I used the Martin Niemöller poem in our lesson on “marking-up” today and, in groping for modern analogies, I ended up asking what if “they” started rounding up Muslims in the name of preventing terrorism. My students voiced the opinion that it would be a violation of their rights and we got into a little discussion about how they could “speak-up”, which was a nice precursor that I’ll have to refer back to when we have our upcoming civil-society/governance projects.
Coincidentally, I ran into an interesting post on anti-Muslim prejudice.
38 percent of Americans in 2006 said they would never vote for a Muslim for president, just about the number who said they would never vote for a gay person. In December of 2004, Cornell released a survey showing that half of Americans consciously told a pollster that they would favor a curtailment of civil rights for Muslims. – Armbinder, 2010 (my emphasis)
(I’m not sure where he gets the 38% from, but Armbinder does cite a Gallup report on the topic.)
I was curious to see what my students thought about the possibility that half of Americans would favor less rights for Muslims. They seemed somewhat surprised. They seemed to think that adults should know better.
Regarding Niemöller poem, Harold Marcuse has an interesting webpage dedicated to the history of the words quoted above. There is some controversy, since Niemöller used different groups at different times, trading out Communists for socialistist or trade unionists for example. This is a nice illustration of the fact that although the words change, the meaning remains the same.
To teach effectively, you need to speak the same language
An interesting research project has shown that the same parts of the brain light up when you’re telling a story as when you’re listening to the story. So much so, that you begin to anticipate and parts of the your brain actually light up before the same parts in the storyteller’s. And the greater the synchronization, the greater the recall of the story.
The researchers found considerable synchronization between Silbert’s brain-activation patterns and those of her listeners as the story unfolded. For example, as Silbert spoke about her prom experience, the same areas lit up in her brain as in the brains of her listeners. In most brain regions, the activation pattern in the listeners’ brains came a few seconds after that seen in Silbert’s brain. But a few brain areas, including one in the frontal lobe, actually lit up before Silbert’s, perhaps representing listeners’ anticipating what she was going to say next, the team says. – Balter, 2010
That’s fascinating enough, but the control of their experiment was to have listeners listen to a story in a language they did not know. There was not the same synchronization. This means, if we extrapolate a little, that the amount of language comprehension determines how much you learn from a conversation, or hearing a story, or listening to a lecture, or even for understanding a set of oral instructions.
So if you want students to remember something you need to speak in their language. Language here refers not just to English versus Russian or whatever, but speaking using common idioms that the student is, like, you know, familiar with.
James Paul Gee has written a lot about this type of communication, and what it means for learning. He argues that meaning is situated, that is, how we understand something that is said to us depends a lot on our previous history and experiences. The most effective communication only really occurs within communities that have shared the same, or similar, experiences.
We are as teachers, of course, trying to expand student’s ability to use language, and introduce them to the language of different communities. But we should probably pay attention to how we speak in different contexts, and speak in their language when we want them to really remember something.
Poverty and how we speak
The way we write and the way we speak have an enormous impact on our success in life. Formal language has a sequential, cause-and-effect structure that favors steady continuity which facilitates logical argument. It’s what we try to teach. It is the language of education, office-work and, in our society, the middle class.
Casual language has a very different narrative structure, starting at the emotional high-point, emphasizing relationships and requiring audience participation. It is the language for engaged storytelling. In our society, for the most part, formal language is valued while casual language is not. Casual language is used, most often, by people in poverty.
The separation imposed by these two forms of language defines the “culture of poverty” described by Ruby K. Payne in her book, “Framework for Understanding Poverty“. Payne argues that there are profound cultural differences between the poor and the middle class that tends to propagate poverty from generation to generation.
The poor tend to value interpersonal relationships, emotional responses and short-term interactions while the middle class favors self-sufficiency, logical responses and planning for the future. And these values manifest themselves most obviously in casual versus formal language. Because language is cultural and is passed on with culture, so is poverty. Poverty is self-perpetuating.
[For] students to be successful, we must . . . teach them the rules that will make them successful at school and at work. – Payne (2003)
Payne’s work is popular, over one million books sold and she trains over 40,000 educators a year (Ng and Rury, 2009), but she is not without her strident critics.
A recent article in the Journal of Educational Controversy, (Dudley-Marling, 2007) contends that, “Payne’s assertions about the ways poor people live their lives are without foundation, at best misrepresentations of other people’s work, reflecting the basest stereotypes about the poor that have existed for over 100 years.” This article in turn inspired most of another volume’s worth of articles in response. Gunewardena (2009) contends that Payne principles “portend a dangerous form of social engineering.”
Most of the criticisms appear to be based on the fact that her work is anecdotal, not scientifically based, especially since there is some scientific evidence that conflicts with her observations. Ng and Rury, (2009) emphasize that poverty is a complex issue:
Our analysis, however, demonstrates statistical associations of varying strengths between children’s educational success and a host of different circumstances impacting their lives. Poverty itself is a serious issue, no doubt. Its lone impact may not be as significant as other factors, though, and it often works in conjunction with other disadvantaging variables. – Ng and Rury, (2009)
In thinking of applying this book, Michael Reinke’s review of Payne’s book concludes that, “a recommendation for use of this book either in the classroom or the general workplace would only come with some significant reservations.” Also, “A Framework for Understanding Poverty is a good start for the uninitiated student or professional working for the first time with a low income population. At the same time, it must be read in the context of a broader conversation on poverty. To view it as the sole source for developing classroom strategies would do a disservice to all involved.”
The greatest utility of Payne’s book may be where she discusses instructional techniques and how to improve instruction.
It is in the chapter where Payne has the most experience, “Instruction and Improving Achievement,” that she takes the more immediate approach. Identifying input strategies, designing lesson plans around cognitive strategies, and conceptual frameworks for instruction all provide a starting point for the teacher looking for assistance and for the student trying to learn. It may or may not be true that the concept of “hidden rules” has merit, but the teacher in the classroom–never mind the student–is likely to benefit from more concrete strategies addressing specific concerns. – Michael Reinke
Payne does back up her recommendations for instruction with the scientific literature so, as a result, a lot of it looks like what you see in the Montessori training. A piecewise comparison of Payne’s general instructional techniques and the Montessori Method (see Lillard, 2005) would make for an interesting project. I’ve also come across some good exercises that I think will apply very nicely to middle school.